Collection and transfer of equine embryos.

The research article is about the collection and transfer of horse embryos, where the success rates of surgical versus non-surgical methods are compared.

Research Methodology and Findings

The reconstruction of the abstract provides the following information about the research methodology and findings:

• Researchers attempted to recover equine embryos in 1979 and 1980, finding success rates of 83% and 72% respectively.
• They measured the diameters of day 8 and 9 blastocysts, and found them to be 1.00 mm and 2.13 mm respectively.
• A particular hormonal treatment (injection of prostaglandin F2 alpha or prostalene) on day 8 or 9 after ovulation resulted in an average period of 17.7 +/- 0.3 days between attempts to recover embryos.
• The number of embryos recovered did not significantly vary with repeated attempts within the same mare (horse).

Comparison of Surgical and Non-surgical Transfer

The research also involved a comparison of the success rates of surgical and non-surgical embryo transfers:

• After surgical transfer, 53% of recipient mares were pregnant at 50 days post-ovulation.
• In contrast, only 27% of mares were pregnant at the same 50-day mark following non-surgical embryo transfer.

Key Takeaways

The research implies that:

• There is a high success rate in the recovery of equine embryos, but this rate appears to decrease slightly with time (based on the results from 1979 and 1980).
• The size of the blastocysts increases with each day following ovulation.
• A hormone treatment can regulate the timing between embryo recovery attempts.
• Repeated attempts at embryo recovery do not significantly affect the number of embryos that can be recovered from a single mare.
• Surgical methods of embryo transfer tend to be more effective than non-surgical ones in achieving pregnancies in mares.